Boehner: Biden's lying about stimulus

Vice President Joe Biden is invading House Minority Leader John Boehner’s back yard tomorrow to tout the success of the stimulus package, but Boehner is redoubling his attacks, accusing the vice president of lying about the economy.

“I found it ... interesting over the last couple of days to hear Vice President Biden and the president mention the fact that they didn’t realize how difficult an economic circumstance we were in,” Boehner said. “Now this is the greatest fabrication I have seen since I’ve been in Congress.”

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“I’ve sat in meetings in the White House with the vice president and the president. There’s not one person that sat in those rooms that didn’t understand how serious our economic crisis was,” Boehner said.

Boehner also took a shot at the idea of a second stimulus – something Biden said he was open to last week.

“All of this talk of a second stimulus bill, I think, is an admission on the part of the administration that their stimulus plan is not working,” Boehner said.

On Thursday morning, Biden will appear at Cincinnati's American Can Building to deliver a progress report on the stimulus act and will hold a similar event in Saratoga Springs later in the day.

The Democratic National Committee, meanwhile, released a web ad this morning blasting Boehner on the stimulus.

"Fact is, John Boehner supported the Bush economic policies of the past eight years that brought our economy to its knees," the ad says. "Now John Boehner is using baseless attacks to mislead the public about the success of the Recovery Act."

On a Democratic National Committee-sponsored conference call to push back against Boehner’s charge against Biden, Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern said it was Boehner who was misleading the public on the success of the stimulus.

Redfern said that Boehner had mischaracterized the success of the stimulus package during an appearance on Fox News Sunday last week – and that the record needed to be set straight.

“For John Boehner to make things up with a wave of a hand is disappointing and shameful,” said Redfern, who listed a series of stimulus projects underway throughout the economically-battered state of Ohio. “If John Boehner thinks he can go on national TV and lie and go unchallenged, he’s wrong.”